Change to infrastructure costs

[Froggiest1982 (OP)]

The amount of resource would need to be balanced of course in some way, but it should not make population a drag on your economy... just absorb some of the profit to flatten the snowball curve a bit.

I think this would be a neat way to solve the problems stated in the OP - making free infrastructure and other things cost something to build, without making the cost onerous, and also requiring some actual investment instead of dumping 10m pops in a sweatshop on Luna.

I am currently editing my DB to allow the production of infrastructure only above 500m population.

Mostly it's an experiment to see how much would cost to support manually Sol's colonies.

Long story short: a lot.

If I were to reach my goal of 500 on Luna I would have to invest:

190,000 Wealth
95,000 Duranium
95,000 Mercassium

Terraforming it's becoming a big factor as I cannot spare the Mercassium atm. To terraform Luna at a decent pace (same as organically reaching 500m with immigration and base pop growth) I would require at least 10 terraformers at 100% with base tech (roughly 19 years) and to support the workers and build the facilities I would have to invest only:

6900 wealth
3475 Duranium
3000 Boronide
475 Mercassium

Considering the above, with my current setup I will have to change the Terraforming at least to 10% making terraforming still preferred but not so cheap (100 terraforming installations):

79,000 wealth
69,500 Duranium
30,000 Boronide
9,500 Mercassium

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think civilian TN mineral consumption should be tied to planetary population; for example, per million population on a given body there would be a set rate of mineral consumption (say maybe a total of 100 tons of various TN minerals per month) at certain tech levels (perhaps dictated by the wealth generation technology). I think tying civilian consumption to trade good production, with different goods needing different types and quantities of TN minerals, sounds really cool in theory. However, in practice, organizing mineral shipments for a constantly-changing civilian market could prove to be a micromanagement headache.

I also agree with the idea that the player should be able to set some sort of % modifier to consumption as a form of "rationing"; for example, if one sets consumption to 50%, then resource consumption would be reduced to 50 tons per million population per month, with a corresponding increase in planetary unrest and perhaps a decrease in wealth generation. Likewise, being unable to fulfill civilian TN mineral needs should cause similar penalties to rationing. Furthermore, while these mineral needs are met, civilian infrastructure production should proceed as normal, with corresponding decreases when shortages and/or rationing occurs.

Civilian mining operations should also aid towards fulfilling the resource consumption of populated colonies, although I'm not sure of the best way to go about implementing such a mechanic. I'm thinking minerals sold to the civilian sector should subtract from the mineral consumption of the most populous colony in the system. However, this would create the need to track "civilian" stockpiles of TN minerals which introduces additional complexity.

The lack of TN mineral consumption by populations has been bugging me for some time, as theoretically one can turtle up in Sol with military craft made with whatever limited resources were found in-system. The introduction of true TN resource scarcity would drive players to explore, and come into conflict with alien races. The introduction of civilian TN mineral requirements could also introduce planetary blockades as an interesting tactic: assuming that the population doesn't have any local mineral production, a fleet could "starve" into submission the planetary population as their TN mineral stockpile runs out and unrest rises. This could tie neatly into surrender mechanics for a planetary population, though I'm not sure how the surrender mechanics for a population work at present.

This was pretty much what I suggested as well... the population would consume a specific amount of TN resources and base it on the wealth technology. Fuel would also be consumed but not only based on population but also on the total size and consumption of the civilian fleet. In addition every player created ship deemed as either commercial or station should also cost an amount of wealth to support. There should be NOTHING in the game that is totally "free" of charge to run and maintain.

Cost of trade goods would then just be an abstract as population produce trade goods and consume TN resources, so indirectly there is a cost to trade goods and the infrastructure that population build.

It would be a relatively simple change but would have a big impact on game balance perhaps, but it also could be an option players can choose to use or not for people that don't like the extra challenge.

[Droll]

The surrender-through-blockade idea is one that needs to be treated with care lest ground invasions become completely useless. At least now OBS causes so much collateral that you kind of want a ground invasion to conquer a world however if I can just establish a totally legal blockade then I can have a world with no collateral damage and no need to spends time and resources on an invasion army/transports.

Such a feature pretty much would require an overhaul on what unrest actually does (there was a suggestion a while ago to make unrest cause damage to infrastructure and garrisons if not policed) and as far as the time frame goes it should operate on periods as long as decades, so an invasion is available as the quick and dirty option.

[firsal]

The surrender-through-blockade idea is one that needs to be treated with care lest ground invasions become completely useless. At least now OBS causes so much collateral that you kind of want a ground invasion to conquer a world however if I can just establish a totally legal blockade then I can have a world with no collateral damage and no need to spends time and resources on an invasion army/transports.

Such a feature pretty much would require an overhaul on what unrest actually does (there was a suggestion a while ago to make unrest cause damage to infrastructure and garrisons if not policed) and as far as the time frame goes it should operate on periods as long as decades, so an invasion is available as the quick and dirty option.

Seconded, given that planetary invasions take (based on nuclearslurpee's analysis on planetary invasions) months at most to resolve, I think TN resource shortages should take years before forcing the surrender of a planetary population. The player is thus presented with an interesting choice between forcing a surrender now via ground invasion, or starving the enemy into economic submission.

In addition, there's also the possibility that the planet has its own reserves of TN minerals and/or mineral production, thus rendering the whole blockade strategy unfeasible. This would then necessitate the gathering of intel on the population to blockaded (the installations it has, mineral reserves (both in the ground and in stockpiles), current unrest levels) which would spawn more interesting choices and narrative opportunities for the player.

This was pretty much what I suggested as well... the population would consume a specific amount of TN resources and base it on the wealth technology. Fuel would also be consumed but not only based on population but also on the total size and consumption of the civilian fleet. In addition every player created ship deemed as either commercial or station should also cost an amount of wealth to support. There should be NOTHING in the game that is totally "free" of charge to run and maintain.

Cost of trade goods would then just be an abstract as population produce trade goods and consume TN resources, so indirectly there is a cost to trade goods and the infrastructure that population build.

It would be a relatively simple change but would have a big impact on game balance perhaps, but it also could be an option players can choose to use or not for people that don't like the extra challenge.

Apologies, I missed one of your earlier posts in this thread. +1 to the concept that nothing should be totally "free" of charge, and that all of these new mechanics should be completely optional.

[Garfunkel]

"I haven't had a new TV in two years and this makes me so angry that I want my planet to surrender to the aliens who eat babies for breakfast", said nobody ever.

People don't surrender unless it's literally the only option aside from certain death and sometimes not even then. Germany was starving in both 1918 and 1945, and defeat was a certainty, yet Germans didn't topple their governments. Japanese civilians on Okinawa committed mass suicide rather than surrender to Americans.

Furthermore, especially on CC0 planets, there is no need for TN minerals to keep the civilian economy going. It's abstracted and in the background, but it's there, same with food production. Even on non-CC0 planets, it's questionable how much TN minerals the colony would need to survive. The idea that a bunch of civilians would attack their own soldiers and overthrow their local government in order to surrender to aliens because they haven't gotten new high-tech toys in a year or three is absurd.

Blockading colonies and forcing them to surrender or wither away requires at least food production to be properly modelled and most likely a non-TN based economy at some level.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I don't think that blockading a planet should have any effect on population other than what the player want to have which can be modeled with SM.

I think that lack of TN material simply lower the production efficiency of the colony and that is it, it should only be an economic modifier.

[QuakeIV]

Its odd, in reality you would think the civilian economy would wind up developing a pretty strong dependency on this stuff.

I assume the reason it hasn't is partly for simplicities sake, but its not unreasonable to think a blockade might actually have an impact in most cases if there is actually a big interstellar integrated economy (particularly if there was a lot of civilian freight going back and forth).

e: I originally came here to mention that wealth-only infrastructure cost actually wouldn't fit into the system and would be a special case.  If I recall correctly, the wealth cost is always the sum of the mineral cost and might even be a calculated value based off of that.

[firsal]

"I haven't had a new TV in two years and this makes me so angry that I want my planet to surrender to the aliens who eat babies for breakfast", said nobody ever.
People don't surrender unless it's literally the only option aside from certain death and sometimes not even then. Germany was starving in both 1918 and 1945, and defeat was a certainty, yet Germans didn't topple their governments. Japanese civilians on Okinawa committed mass suicide rather than surrender to Americans.

I was thinking more along the lines of "our society is breaking down since we're having a severe shortage of these amazing minerals that make modern society possible". Sure, people wouldn't outright starve, but as their machinery and infrastructure break down it'll become harder and harder to keep the social order. Perhaps the "blockade" mechanic could be a function of the blockaded species' determination, as well as the blockading species' xenophobia (though that seems tricky to integrate, given that multiple allied empires could blockade a planet together).

Alternatively, perhaps a TN-mineral shortage could weaken the morale of ground forces instead. This would model their equipment gradually breaking down as their TN-mineral-based parts become impossible to replace, and eventually make the planet much easier to take via ground invasion.

Anyway, I think that we're straying away from the main point of me and Jorgen_CAB's suggestion: that civilians and civilian shipping should consume TN resources. At its core, this suggestion would (if the player desires) remove the civilian sector's exception to resource consumption, while adding corresponding penalties to limiting civilian consumption. This would also address the main issue of the thread (the production of "free" infrastructure produced by civilians) as well as give more impetus for player expansion. I merely suggested the concept of a blockade as interesting gameplay (or roleplay supported by game mechanics) that could arise from this suggested mechanic.

[Garfunkel]

[I was thinking more along the lines of "our society is breaking down since we're having a severe shortage of these amazing minerals that make modern society possible". Sure, people wouldn't outright starve, but as their machinery and infrastructure break down it'll become harder and harder to keep the social order.

But that has never happened in human history. People think it's a plausible scenario but it isn't. Because war, especially total war, displaces all other priorities and usual/normal life. And as long as civilian economy exists outside of the player-controlled TN-economy, you cannot make the argument that the civilian sector is dependent on TN minerals to the extent that lack of them would cause everything to collapse. I know that quite a few players have roleplayed that in their stories but there isn't anything in the game mechanics to prove that. Which means that there shouldn't be a game mechanic that logically goes against other game mechanics.

Anyway, I think that we're straying away from the main point of me and Jorgen_CAB's suggestion: that civilians and civilian shipping should consume TN resources. At its core, this suggestion would (if the player desires) remove the civilian sector's exception to resource consumption, while adding corresponding penalties to limiting civilian consumption. This would also address the main issue of the thread (the production of "free" infrastructure produced by civilians) as well as give more impetus for player expansion. I merely suggested the concept of a blockade as interesting gameplay (or roleplay supported by game mechanics) that could arise from this suggested mechanic.

You're right and I do agree that civilians should consume TN resources. Civilian shipping shouldn't appear out of nowhere - ideally, they would construct their own shipping yards or rather there would be civilian shipping yards that civilian shipping lines buy their ships from and then they use those to establish civilian mining colonies, and that whole cycle would consume TN-minerals. And that player could establish rationing or mandatory government stockpiles.

[serger]

But that has never happened in human history. People think it's a plausible scenario but it isn't. Because war, especially total war, displaces all other priorities and usual/normal life.

From Peloponnesian War to Rhodesian war.
It is not a frequent outcome, but sometimes it happens - the economy of blocaded polity becomes so suffering, that it leads to the surrender.

[Garfunkel]

But that has never happened in human history. People think it's a plausible scenario but it isn't. Because war, especially total war, displaces all other priorities and usual/normal life.

From Peloponnesian War to Rhodesian war.
It is not a frequent outcome, but sometimes it happens - the economy of blocaded polity becomes so suffering, that it leads to the surrender.

Rhodesia was a civil war or, more accurately, the longest-standing colonial war in human history. You're right in that both sanctions and a blockade were involved to an extent but the end came only because the Rhodesian side lost the war itself. Or rather, the Rhodesian government realized that they were going to lose and they went for a negotiated peace treaty to avoid the complete collapse of their nation. I'm not well versed in Ancient History so you might be right about Peloponnesian War.

Anyway, this is definitely getting off-topic - my main point vis-a-vis Aurora is that colony surrender when blockaded should not happen until there are game mechanics in place that deal with civilian economy, food and basic supplies production in more detail than there is currently. Forcing a colony to surrender due bombardment is fine of course, that's already in.

[serger]

Rhodesia was a civil war or, more accurately

It's a tricky question sometimes where some war is civil war or not, yet I think it would be sufficiently to specify, that inner-Rhodesian sources (both manpower and financial) were not primary ones for nationalists, so it was mostly intervention, not an inner conflict.
(I'm not a fan of White nationalists, so it's just a point of conflict structure, not ideology.)

And my main point is, weather or not this war was a civil war, it's end was achieved mostly through blockade. It isn't, I think, essential for this topic if some war is a civil war, because civil wars are mostly bitter ones, their belligerents are usually just more immune, not more sensitive to economical threats, so if some civil war is ending because of blockade and hopeless economical (not military) perspectives - it's a relevant example.

[serger]

To the starting point.
If some level of unrest will be sufficient to declare independence or surrender to blockading empire - it's, I think, more a secondary question compared to the point, that some significant effects of blockade* would be very nice to see, and to calculate, remember and implement such things manually is rather tedious.

So I think the most easy-to-implement and in the same time satisfying will be a mechanics, where:
1. Destroyed civillian ship will add some extra (temporal, half-life time I think a year) value to the PPV need of colony this ship was heading to.
2. Restricted status do the same for the restricted colony.

[Garfunkel]

Well, it does matter in this context because the original suggestion was:

assuming that the population doesn't have any local mineral production, a fleet could "starve" into submission the planetary population as their TN mineral stockpile runs out and unrest rises. This could tie neatly into surrender mechanics for a planetary population, though I'm not sure how the surrender mechanics for a population work at present.

My argument used the fact that in human history, entire populations have not surrendered to hostile invaders because their economy collapsed or because they suffered hardship. Your counterpoint was Rhodesia, which was not a war where a hostile invader besieged a population into surrender. Whether we call it a colonial/independence war or civil war or proxy war doesn't matter because the crux of the matter is that the main factions existed in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe already. And the economic sanctions (or blockade) wouldn't have forced Rhodesian government to agree to a negotiated end to the conflict if they hadn't seen the writing on the wall - that without the support of the US and South-Africa, they were absolutely going to lose the military conflict, though they might have lost it anyway.

Now, having thought about this more, we could make a case where colonies are treated more like medieval castles/towns, which did sometimes surrender due to sieges, though it wasn't a given. But that sort of thing mostly happened because to the local population it didn't matter who their lord was - one noble was largely same as any other - and things wouldn't generally change for them much at all. Whereas when religion came into play (Crusaders, 30-year war), surrendering became lot rarer and atrocities became commonplace. Which might be a better analogue for Aurora, where aliens won't blink an eye(-stalk) before committing nuclear holocaust on other species.

So I think the most easy-to-implement and in the same time satisfying will be a mechanics, where:
1. Destroyed civillian ship will add some extra (temporal, half-life time I think a year) value to the PPV need of colony this ship was heading to.
2. Restricted status do the same for the restricted colony.

Isn't this already the case? Civilian shipping will avoid systems where civilian ships have been destroyed until the danger rating goes back down. Though I think the danger rating doesn't affect the PPV needs of colonies. Connecting those could be useful to give the system little more meat.

[serger]

Your counterpoint was Rhodesia, which was not a war where a hostile invader besieged a population into surrender.

My point is that factually it was.
It's not a popular view outside of certain whitish circles, it's not a pleasant view, yet the structure of this war was mostly intervention, not inner insurgency.

And the economic sanctions (or blockade) wouldn't have forced Rhodesian government to agree to a negotiated end to the conflict if they hadn't seen the writing on the wall - that without the support of the US and South-Africa, they were absolutely going to lose the military conflict

As far as I know - they were not.
It was a question of quality of life. They have enough resources to stand, though they'll have to sacrifice too much in quality of life - and a quality of life was what they fought for.
And the same is for South-Africa - it was forced to surrender by (factually) blockade/sanctions, not military actions (though it was less a war at all).

Now, having thought about this more, we could make a case where colonies are treated more like medieval castles/towns, which did sometimes surrender due to sieges, though it wasn't a given. But that sort of thing mostly happened because to the local population it didn't matter who their lord was - one noble was largely same as any other - and things wouldn't generally change for them much at all. Whereas when religion came into play (Crusaders, 30-year war), surrendering became lot rarer and atrocities became commonplace. Which might be a better analogue for Aurora, where aliens won't blink an eye(-stalk) before committing nuclear holocaust on other species.

Yep.
It's possible to implement some level of vectored xenophobia, based on weather or not your enemy's empire has the same species as citizens or not and what is your and their level of general xenophobia, but it looks like quite complicated. I'll be happy if Steve will implement it, yet I'm not in optimistic mood about this possibility.

Though I think the danger rating doesn't affect the PPV needs of colonies. Connecting those could be useful to give the system little more meat.

That's my point exactly.
Because to calculate minerals need for civilian economy... I'm not in optimistic mood about this possibility at all.